Why Healing Is A Feminist Act

Silence is not merely the absence of speech. Silence surrounds, engulfs and chokes a person. As is often the case with women. Cultural norms and social structures compel women into roles of endurance – from that of a sacrificing mother to a responsible, “respectable” daughter.

Discouraged from expressing ambition, dissatisfaction and trauma, they are socialised to be quiet, agreeable, and perpetually grateful.

They are raised to be sent away after marriage and conditioned to prioritise survival over choice. The futures and possibilities of these women and who they could have become are forever lost.

This repression, however, does not make women’s emotions disappear. The pain becomes internalised and is manifested in the forms of shame and guilt for having normal human reactions.

Women and their behaviour are always under surveillance. The constant gaslighting and questioning the validity of one’s emotions leads to low self-esteem and other mental health issues.

All while women continue to do the emotional labour of maintaining harmony in families and as mothers, wives, or caregivers, often at the cost of losing themselves in the process. In all cases, women end up being neglected, or worse, punished.

Healing As Resistance

Speaking openly about feelings that might seem “unfeminine” or undesirable offers a language to make meaning and process trauma. It gives women what they have always been denied: agency, voice, representation. Doing so cannot come without a cost.

Not only are their inner lives silenced, but anyone who dares to defy these archetypes, ask questions or refuse to do what they are expected to do is frequently labelled as rebellious, disrespectful, selfish, difficult, bossy, aggressive, a ‘madwoman’ or ‘angry cat lady’, morally failing, or historically treated as ‘hysteria’ or some disorder.

A person who has never felt safe or free cannot fully consent, resist, or choose. Emotional safety is not a private luxury; it is a precondition for political agency.

Speaking about the gendered abuse, neglect, or violence experienced at home or the workplace is often framed as betrayal, disrespect, or dishonour. Yet “protecting honour” usually means propagating existing power arrangements.

Telling the truth about domestic harm challenges the myth that families are naturally benevolent and forces recognition that violence does not stop at the doorstep.

Feminist courage lies not only in confronting institutions, but in naming what is most intimate and most forbidden. Boundaries, therapy, rest, and refusal are not signs of weakness; they are acts of resistance against systems that benefit from exhaustion, obedience, and pain.

Healing from trauma is often treated as an individual responsibility, but this framing obscures its political significance. A healed person is harder to control, shame, or silence.

When healing is understood collectively rather than as personal failure, blame shifts away from individuals and toward the structures that normalise harm. Ending this cycle requires a daily reminder that the personal is, indeed, political. 

Views expressed by the author are their own.